The proliferation of vehicle occupant restraint systems in recent years has saved many lives when unfortunate vehicle accidents occur. Various vehicle occupant restraint systems are utilized and typical inflatable restraint systems include driver and passenger front airbags, side airbags and side curtain airbags. Non-inflatable restraint systems also exist, and a pretensioner seatbelt system that tightens seatbelts is a sample non-inflatable restraint system. These various occupant restraint systems are all critical in protecting vehicle occupants during accidents, but are only as good as the detection and deployment systems tasked with detecting and deploying occupant restraint systems.
Typically, deployment and detection control systems utilize several signals from sensors placed throughout an automobile to determine if certain predetermined thresholds are crossed when initiating an occupant restraint system. For example, side airbags use lateral acceleration sensors to detect the lateral acceleration of a vehicle and a side impact event. If the lateral acceleration sensor detects a lateral acceleration above or below a certain predetermined threshold, the deployment control system may trigger the corresponding side airbag(s) to protect vehicle occupants. Although current deployment systems provide safer vehicles than those not having any deployment and detection systems, some such systems may inadvertently misfire causing a vehicle occupant restraint system to deploy when a crash event or rollover event is not actually occurring. Such misfires may harm vehicle occupants, alarm vehicle occupants which may result in an accident, and may cost vehicle owners large sums of money to repackage or reset occupant restraint systems. Additionally, certain deployment systems may inadvertently deploy rollover restraint systems instead of a crash system during a crash, or deploy crash restraint system during a rollover event.
What is needed, therefore, is a rollover detection system capable of distinguishing between crash (front impact and side impact), rollover, and safe events to prevent the misfiring of crash and rollover occupant restraint systems. Methods and systems capable of detecting automobile rollover events while utilizing existing vehicle data sensors and confirming that a rollover or crash event is occurring would prevent occupant restraint systems from inadvertently misfiring.